Dutch Police seize servers of Motherless, porn site known for sexual abuse content
Dutch police seized servers belonging to the hosting company behind the pornographic website Motherless during raids in Steenbergen, Rotterdam, and Amsterdam on Tuesday. Authorities are investigating suspected sexual abuse material found on the platform, including possible child sexual abuse and footage of men assaulting unconscious women. As well as tips on how to drug your partner.
The Public Prosecution Service is investigating both the people who uploaded the material and the possible role of the website itself. Police said they will work with Europol in the coming period to examine videos from multiple countries, including the Netherlands. No arrests have been made.
Police and prosecutors declined to provide further details because of the ongoing investigation, but the Public Prosecution Service said the case is part of an international investigation.
Offlimits, an expert center that analyzes this type of material, welcomed the raids. The organization said it had previously called for an investigation into Motherless’ servers.
“We previously called for an investigation into the servers. We are therefore very pleased that this has now happened,” Offlimits said.
The organization had earlier warned that simply having content removed after it appears online is not enough. According to Offlimits, platforms such as Motherless carry the risk that “violence against women and online lawlessness are increasingly being normalized.”
Motherless previously came under scrutiny following the case involving Gisèle Pelicot, whose husband was convicted of drugging her for years and allowing other men to rape her. He was sentenced to 20 years in prison, while other men involved also received lengthy prison sentences.
The case drew attention to similar material allegedly shared on Motherless, where users could upload videos that, according to descriptions on the site, showed women being abused while drugged.
In May, Dutch prosecutors took the site offline following a report by NOS and said they had launched an exploratory investigation. The website returned online within a month after representatives said measures had been taken to remove illegal content.
A later NOS investigation found that Motherless employees themselves were also involved in uploading illegal material. Among thousands of pornographic images shared on the platform were several involving minors.
Motherless responded that identifying violations was like searching for “a needle in a haystack” because of “tens of thousands of uploads per day.” Following the controversy, the website removed its description of itself as a “moral free file host,” meaning a place where users could upload content without moral restrictions.
